Dollar General, which sponsors Matt Kenseth‘s team at Joe Gibbs Racing, announced Monday that it will not return to NASCAR after this season.
The company’s statement read:
Dollar General has had tremendous success with NASCAR and our sponsorship of Joe Gibbs Racing. We have enjoyed a great partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing and we are excited to see what the No. 20 Dollar General car driven by Matt Kenseth will accomplish during the remainder of 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Our strategy to reallocate our future marketing assets into new programs is strictly a business decision to align our priorities to better serve our customer in this rapidly changing retail environment.
Dollar General has served as Kenseth’s primary sponsor in 10 of 12 points races this season and in the Sprint All-Star Race and Sprint Unlimited exhibition races. Dollar General was the sponsor on Kenseth’s car earlier this month at Dover when he won.
Joe Gibbs Racing is expected to announce a replacement sponsor in the next month or so.
NASCAR’s Steve O’Donnell said that one driver shouldn’t be blamed for the Sprint All-Star Race format, admitted that “we learned some lessons” from last weekend’s race but was encouraged by the racing.
O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer, made his comments Monday on “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Brad Keselowski was given credit for some of the ideas when the format was introduced — and then blamed for what resulted Saturday night — but O’Donnell said the format changes included input from several drivers, NASCAR and Charlotte Motor Speedway, among others.
“I’ve seen some of the blame, some of the tweets that are cast upon one driver, let me dispel that myth,’’ O’Donnell said. “This was an inclusive effort. Were there some folks that maybe didn’t like the concept going in? Sure, but that’s any part of a format. I’m proud of what we put together in working with folks, working with the track and the industry. When you saw it play out in the race, I don’t want to say it was a perfect storm, but it was.’’
Problems occurred late in the first 50-lap segment. All teams were required to make a green-flag pit stop during that segment. Matt Kenseth was the only driver who hadn’t when Jamie McMurray’s spin brought out the caution on Lap 47. The caution period went to the end of the segment.
Kenseth had no chance at that point to fulfill the green-flag pit stop requirement before the segment ended.
NASCAR held Kenseth for a lap on pit road. Still, eight cars were a lap down and had no chance of getting their lap back. In a typical race, they could have stayed on the track for the wave around to get back on the lead lap while those ahead pitted. Problem was that NASCAR required all teams to pit after the first segment for at least two tires.
“In hindsight, we didn’t have the wave-around rule,’’ O’Donnell said. “Once you mandate that teams come down to change tires together, that prevented us from having a wave around and that created where we trapped cars a lap down.
“Do we wish we would have had that in place? Absolutely. Could we have made a call to maybe just wave them around anyway? We probably could have. The guys who had a lap up on everybody, what would they say? It was an unfortunate circumstance. We thought we had anticipated everything, but this one snuck up on us.’’
O’Donnell also was asked if the event would remain at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It has been run there every year but once since debuting in 1985.
“We’re happy with the event at Charlotte,’’ he said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Our intent is that it will be at Charlotte.’’
O’Donnell said that Tony Stewart would not be fined for his comments on FS1’s broadcast. O’Donnell said he talked to Stewart after the race.
O’Donnell also said that he felt good about the racing. Joey Logano chased leader Kyle Larson and passed him with two laps to go to win.
“We put some tweaks into the rules package, certainly minor, but wanted to see directionally if it would continue to have a positive influence on a track, especially at Charlotte, that has been one of the more challenging tracks for us both from tire wear and the leader getting kind of a big separation from second place,’’ O’Donnell said.
“What you saw really throughout the night, especially with some of our up-and-coming talent battling door-to-door for wins was really encouraging to see. The ability to pass certainly improved for the weekend and expect to see that continue for the (Coca-Cola) 600. Directionally, from a race product, (it’s) really continuing on what we’ve seen all year long, which is absolutely encouraging.’’
The last couple of weeks have showcased some fascinating duels between young drivers in the Sprint Cup Series.
Kyle Larson has been involved in each.
Larson dueled with Chase Elliott for second place at Dover earlier this month. Larson eventually pulled away and challenged Matt Kenseth for the win before settling for second.
In Saturday’s Sprint Showdown, Larson battled Elliott for the win in the final segment to advance to the Sprint All-Star Race. Although their Dover battle was without contact, Larson squeezed Elliott into the wall off Turn 4 of the final lap of the Showdown, and they hit before Larson won.
“Kyle did what he had to do to beat us back to the end of the line, which is part of it,’’ said Elliott, who advanced to the All-Star Race via the fan vote.
Larson was aggressive on that final lap because he feared that if he finished second he wouldn’t advance to the All-Star Race via the fan vote.
“I had to use him up pretty good there,’’ Larson said of Elliott. “Feel bad about that. I feel like me and Chase race really well together. He’s always raced me clean, and I know I raced him dirty there, but I had to.’’
Saturday night saw Larson facing another nemesis in the Sprint All-Star Race.
Joey Logano.
Larson charged to the lead at the start of the final segment, but Logano stalked him. Logano passed Larson with two laps to go. Logano won $1 million. Larson bounced off the wall and finished 16th.
“I hate that I keep letting my team down,’’ Larson said. “I tried to hang on his quarter panel like I did with Chase earlier (in the Showdown). I got really loose as soon as I got in the corner. We were going so fast that I couldn’t correct it and ended up drilling the wall.
It’s not the first time that Logano has kept Larson from winning. In 2014, Larson finished runner-up three times. He finished second to Logano at New Hampshire and Kansas that year.
“He’s a heck of a racer,’’ Logano said about Larson. “He’s going to win a lot of races, that’s for sure, and it’s fun to race against him, and it’s fun to see the youth in this sport. For me, starting eight years ago now, to see guys that are close to my age now, and I get to race them for wins is a lot of fun.”
YOUTH MOVEMENT
The All-Star Race marked the eighth time in the last nine Sprint Cup races that at least one driver age 25 and younger has scored a top-five finish.
Richmond: No driver 25 and younger placed in the top five.
Bristol: Elliott was fourth. Trevor Bayne (25) placed fifth.
Texas: Logano placed third. Elliott was fifth.
Martinsville: Larson was third. Austin Dillon (was 25 at the time) placed fourth.
Auto Club: Logano was fourth.
STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Days after a frank assessment of his team and season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. felt better after his third-place finish in the All-Star race.
Earnhardt is 11th in the points — the lowest he’s been in the points at this time of the season since 2010 — and said on his weekly podcast that “we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror and really get to it here, figure out what’s going on and what we need to be doing, start really trying to find some speed and some answers.’’
Earnhardt noted on his podcast that the All-Star weekend wouldn’t solve all their issues but would be a start. After Saturday night’s race, Earnhardt was encouraged.
“For our team it’s a good step in the right direction to get more competitive,’’ he said. “A lot was made about the comments I made in the podcast on Monday. I just want the team to succeed and really like the crew and Greg (Ives, crew chief), and I think we can do it. We did it last year.
“We started this year off really awesome and hit a little rough patch, but this week was a great opportunity for us to learn, and I think we did. We had about 80 percent of the setup on the car was new stuff. So I hope Greg learned a lot. We didn’t get a lot of practice, so we had to learn as much as we could in the race, and I think we learned some stuff.’’
COVER BOY
By placing fourth and as the highest-finishing Toyota driver in the All-Star Race, Carl Edwards will be on the cover of the NASCAR Heat Evolution game for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. The game will debut Sept. 13.
Myatt Snider was just hoping to finish in his ARCA Racing Series debut Sunday at Toledo Speedway.
Snider finished, alright – and with the checkered flag, capturing the victory in the Menards 200 in the 29-driver field.
Son of NBC NASCAR announcer Marty Snider, 21-year-old Myatt Snider started the race from the third position. He drove the No. 22 Cunningham Motorsports Ford Fusion, with sponsorship from The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce, which just signed on as his sponsor for Sunday’s race this past week.
Here’s some social media posts about the younger Snider’s achievement:
Twitter:
ARCA: @MyattSnider celebrates a victory in his ARCA debut at Toledo.
Myatt Snider wins the #Menards200 on his ARCA Racing Series debut
An elated @MyattSnider in victory lane at @ToledoSpeedway #ARCA
Dalton Sargeant finished second, followed by Kyle Weatherman, Chase Briscoe, Matt Kurzejewski, Josh Williams, Gus Dean, Tom Hessert, Brian Keselowski and Bo LeMastus.
Sunday was the first of nine ARCA races Snider will take part in this season. Others coming up include both season races at Pocono Raceway, as well as Michigan International Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Lucas Oil Raceway (Brownsburg, Indiana), Chicagoland Speedway, Kentucky Speedway and Kansas Speedway.
“I hope to win a race for sure,” Snider said last week. “I want to learn all I possibly can about racing the bigger and heavier cars on the bigger tracks.
“It’ll be a huge learning experience getting adapted to the radial tires. I plan on being like a big sponge in soaking up all the knowledge and experience that I possibly can.”
He apparently has learned his lessons well already.
CONCORD, N.C. – It was a wonderfully shambolic mess that turned the Sprint All-Star Race into astrophysics.
In the “theater of the absurd” (not my words but those of a network host) that transpired Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, we saw:
–A Pro Bowl tight end openly wondering on national TV why teams were “punting on second down.”
–A three-time Sprint Cup champion decreeing it “the dumbest damn thing I’ve ever been a part of. … It’s the most screwed up All-Star Race I’ve ever been a part of. I’m glad it’s my last one.”
–A social media meltdown that remains ongoing with flummoxed crew chiefs, drivers and spotters alternately professing disdain, empathy and exasperation about the event.
In stock-car racing’s traveling circus of silliness, Saturday represented Peak Derp (why hello, Deadspin post!).
Yet it still was captivating (however frustrating) and also featured a thrilling and unpredictable conclusion.
From start to finish, it was the most memorable All-Star Race in more than a decade.
Which is why the Sprint Cup circuit needs more of it.
No, we don’t mean the convoluted format so tricked up and impenetrable, its narrative was the NASCAR equivalent of digesting a William Faulkner novel.
Let’s dispense with the niggling codicils and unexpected consequences that had CPAs gleefully dreaming about itemized deductions from Schedule C. This race was loaded with more legal wrangling than Ferko v. NASCAR.
Focus instead on what worked: The racing.
Whether viewed as an unintended consequence or well-designed construct, the action was the overwhelming highlight on a 1.5-mile oval lately synonymous with snoozefests.
The cascading effect of a bizarre early sequence (puttitng nearly half the field a lap down) ensured there’d be no runaway as in the previous three All-Star Races (when the winner led every lap of the final segment).
While many teams admitted to racing for 12th after the second segment, and Jimmie Johnson successfully claimed that transfer spot into the lead for the final 13-lap dash, the plan to win in clean air couldn’t work because there weren’t enough buffer cars on older tires.
It took half a lap after the green for the front row of Johnson and Kyle Busch to be gobbled up on the last restart.
And once ensured the outcome wouldn’t be a track-position battle, things really got good.
With aerodynamic tweaks in place to keep drivers off throttle for longer through the turns on Charlotte’s grippy, supersonic asphalt, Kyle Larson, 23, and Joey Logano, 25, locked in a stirring battle that left fans cheering and NASCAR marketers swooning.
When Logano swiped first from Larson with two laps remaining, it marked the latest lead change in an All-Star Race in seven years – and it mostly salvaged the head-scratching and hair-pulling preceding it.
It couldn’t have happened without the rules changes, which were the result of a continuing collaboration between NASCAR, teams, drivers and manufacturers on rules that greatly reduced downforce this season.
“Man, if we were running the ’14 or ’15 package, (Larson) could have went wherever (Logano) was going and kept him about 10 car lengths behind him the whole time,” third-place finisher Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “He didn’t ever have to worry about it. The fact that (Logano) can drive up there right to him, we’re going down the right direction.”
The ill-begotten format merely was a byproduct of a NASCAR industry furiously trying to lurch toward something better.
Saturday showed all options must stay on the table in remaining vigilant to ensure Sprint Cup – really, all of racing – keeps striving for relevance.
It’s why the Indianapolis Motor Speedway jazzed up its qualifying format this weekend in the absence of any Bump Day drama. Purists might hate waiting until the final hour to determine the fastest qualifier among nine drivers, but it’s driven by desperation to hold interest (which it certainly did via feel-good pole-sitter James Hinchcliffe).
The same factors are at play in NASCAR.
Saturday night proved some ideas quickly should be cleaved.
Mandatory pit stops that must happen by a certain lap? Meh.
There is a fine line here between being innovative and asinine.
“Gimmicks and all that stuff is going down the wrong path,” Earnhardt said. “The way to make the racing exciting is to make the cars exciting.”
Or help put them in situations engendering excitement. How about shorter races (50 laps still is too long for an All-Star segment, by the way)? De-emphasizing aerodynamics without shunning technology? Incentivizing racing with no quarter as much as possible (which Larson sublimely has managed the past two weeks)?
Don’t stop devising ways to make the on-track product scintillating.
Keep generating creative suggestions … but aggressively eradicate those that don’t work.
Here’s what most of the 20 drivers in Saturday’s Sprint All-Star Race had to say after the race (or after their night ended prematurely) at Charlotte Motor Speedway:
Joey Logano – finished 1st: “What a crazy battle for a million dollars at the end. This is the All-Star Race. It’s special just to be in the race. Forget winning it, it’s just special. It’s neat to be in victory lane. … It’s up there for sure (when asked where does this win rank in his career). It’s definitely one you want to have on your resume. You want to have the Daytona 500, but the All-Star Race is special and the Coca-Cola 600 is next and that’s a really special one to have.”
Brad Keselowski – finished 2nd: “A decent night, but not the great night we wanted with the Miller Lite Ford ending up second. I’m pretty happy for my teammate Joey Logano. He kind of did exactly what you would expect out of an All-Star Race format and made a pretty incredible pass to win the race. I’m happy for Team Penske as a whole, but of course I wish it was me in victory lane. … There was a next-to-last lap pass for the lead. There were several passes for the lead. The last four races there hasn’t been a pass for the lead in the last 20 or 30 laps. I think our fans deserve a better format than that and they got that today. I don’t know how you can get much more compelling racing than what we saw today, so they need to get unconfused and enjoy the racing.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. – finished 3rd: “We still have some gains to make. We didn’t win the race but we outran a lot of guys who had been outrunning us the last few weeks. We didn’t get to practice so we worked really hard during the race changing a lot of stuff, and I hope Greg (crew chief Greg Ives) learned a lot. Next weekend we’ll actually get to practice some and make some changes to see if we can’t get our car better for the 600. I’d love to win that race before I retire.”
Carl Edwards – finished 4th: “I had fun on those restarts. That was wild. I don’t know what it looked like on television. … Just a crazy night. I wouldn’t call it confusing because I kind of understood what was going on, but it took most of my brain power to keep up. … NASCAR has done a good job with the aero package, they’re working in the right direction and the 600 should be good. I think with the long runs in the 600, you’ll see guys moving around a little more and maybe a little more racing.”
Chase Elliott – finished 6th: “I was confused the whole time. I really was. There was a lot of time I didn’t know what was happening and just a lot of things, but hey, I was really proud of our effort. It was such a long day and my guys did such a good job fixing our car; not once, but twice today. So, I’m proud of them for that. I thought we had a good car from the start of the race until we got our damage and I think that’s encouraging for next week.”
Trevor Bayne – finished 7th: “We learned a lot tonight that will help us for next weekend in the (Coca-Cola) 600. Our car was really fast all day long and I’m really happy we got to be a part of this race after winning the Showdown. In that last segment we were able to race into the top five before the aggression really ramped up but we’re happy to come home seventh with this AdvoCare Ford and I’m really proud of all of my guys for their work throughout the day.”
Denny Hamlin – finished 9th: “I think when you start to set rules on you can pit at this time, but you have to do it before this or that and then the caution comes that you don’t expect like we saw then it puts cars laps down. I don’t know. How do you keep up at home to be honest with you? I knew when it took about 10 minutes to explain the rules in the driver’s meeting that it was going to be a complicated night. All this is to give the fans a great finish and we’re trying to fabricate something for them to look at this All-Star race and say that it’s exciting. You want to create a last lap pass every race you can, but you also don’t want to get too goofy trying to create it.”
Kyle Busch – finished 10th: “I have no idea what the race looked like on TV so I can’t really comment on what it was. … I thought our strategy was perfect – poor execution on the driver.”
Kevin Harvick – finished 11th: “We just had something that went wrong. It’s unfortunate, because we had a really fast Busch Light Chevrolet. It was really, really fast, but I just got to a point where I couldn’t steer anymore in traffic or in the corner. It just made it tough.”
Kyle Larson – finished 16th: “I’m super disappointed. I hate that I keep letting my team down. They did everything right. They worked their tails off after I got all the damage in the Showdown. We had a really, really good Target Chevy and were able to get to the front pretty quick there to be in the best position possible there for the last restart. I got clear right away and thought I could cruise. … I’m really disappointed but congrats to Logano and their team. Hats off to my guys. They’ve worked their tails off. We’ve had fast cars the last few weeks where we had struggled with that recently. I’m having fun but this will be hard to get over.”
Matt Kenseth – finished 18th: “I got more than bumped from behind, I think I got drove over. I hope everybody understands this race better than I did from the cockpit, because ever since the first car pitted in that first segment, I have no idea of what’s going on.”
Tony Stewart – finished 20th: “I’m as baffled as everybody,” Stewart said on Fox Sports 1. “It’s the most screwed-up All-Star Race I’ve ever been a part of. I’m glad it’s the last one (for him). I’m alright, I’m just madder than hell. I don’t understand how they’ve officiated this thing from start to finish.”
In a Friday interview with NBC Sports, Kahne said he had gotten acclimated to the speculation.
“Those rumors have been out for a while now,” he said. “It hasn’t been distracting to me. I’ve been kind of fine with it because I know where I’m at. I know I have a deal through 2018.
“So it is what it is. People can come up with different ways to have a story, I guess. I think it was a story, and it probably worked out well for Harvick to have that going on once in a while.”
Kahne missed the playoffs last season for the first time since joining Hendrick in 2012, posting 10 top 10s – his lowest total in five years.
“That’s probably why some of those rumors come out is we don’t have the results that we should have or that we want,” he said. “So we just have to keep working and hopefully, we can figure out where all the speed lies, and we can win races again.”
The most recent of Kahne’s 17 Sprint Cup victories came in August 2014 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, a 59-race winless drought that is the second longest of his career.
“I’d say it’s definitely been the most frustrating time since I’ve been in NASCAR,” Kahne said. “The first year at Hendrick was really good. We brought a lot to the table. So we took off strong, and I thought we were really good. We could have won a lot more races. Since that point, it’s probably been the most frustrating time since I’ve been in Cup or in racing in general.”
There have been glimmers of hope lately for his No. 5 Chevrolet, which notched fourths at Richmond International Raceway and Dover International Speedway (though a 15-point penalty for a post-race violation knocked him to 20th in the rankings). With two top fives through 12 races, Kahne nearly has matched his total (three) from each of the past two seasons.
“I just have to keep working hard and keep working at it,” he said. “Trying to put the pieces together and figure out where our struggles are and make those better. It’s myself doing a better job, it’s (crew chief) Keith (Rodden) doing a better job. It’s every person on our team and then having the support of the company.
“All that is getting better. I think if we go in those directions we’ll win races again.”
